The Literary Mirror

You worked in a call centre yourself. How close is the novel to that experience?

Close in texture, not in event — nothing that happens to the four characters happened to me in that specific form. But the shift patterns, the target sheets, the exact status hierarchy around headsets, that's all drawn straight from three years of my own shifts.

Why avoid the two plots readers usually expect from this setting?

Because both of those plots let the reader off the hook, in a way. The burnout story says the job is a tragedy and the escape story says the job is a stepping stone. Most people I worked with experienced neither — they just kept going to work.

Was there pressure from publishers to add a bigger emotional arc?

Yes, consistently, through two rounds of edits. I held the line on it because I think the lack of arc is the most honest thing about the book, even if it's the least commercial.